The Dutch crew had led from the start but a final sprint and photo finish saw Team GB cross the line by just 0.15 seconds to top the podium.

Speaking after winning Team GB’s first ever gold medal in the Women’s quad, Lauren said: “It was just amazing! I could feel that we were moving on the Dutch crew, so in bow one of my jobs is to call to the other girls, so I said, ‘We’re going now. We need to go now!’ because I could sense we were coming back. Georgie and Lola in the stern really drove that finish and Hannah and I were with them the whole way. We started charging back and I could feel that ‘we’ve got this’.

“We have 100% belief in the race and 100% belief in each other and we just trust our plan and each other so much. We knew that if we deliver our best then we could get an outcome like this, so it was heads in all the way. We’re used to close racing but that was really tight, I felt we’d won it but it wasn’t until I looked over and saw ‘GBR 1’ that I let myself actually believe it and that moment was just ecstatic. We always thought during the race that we had a chance, we’ve come back from quite a long way before, and if we believe it’s over then it already is over. The moment we lose that belief we’ve lost the race so no matter how far behind we are in the race we’ll always have belief until we cross that finish line.”

Lola said: “I think everyone always wants to win as convincingly as possible. To be honest, there’s never a strict plan we look to follow exactly. Racing is always going to be fluid and dynamic and that’s part of what makes everyone here in this event Olympians, and the Olympic standard is the fact they know how to move with the race. If you’re down at the start it’s not over, if you’re down at the 1k, 500m or the 250m it’s not over, you’ve always got a chance to claw your way back. That’s what we have as a crew, we have unrelenting full trust knowing that if we commit we can move, and that’s what we did.”

Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360

Hannah said: “About 10 strokes from the line we just said ‘we got this’, then we just came through. We really trust in ourselves. We did this at the World Championships as well so we like to give people a tight race. We’ve been training for three years for moments like that and we weren’t going to let it go. Tough strokes have been taken every day for that, so other people could see it as nerve wracking but we were all eyes in. Getting the medal from Princess Anne was amazing! She made a good speech for us at the Embassy earlier in the week where she said to the three girls that it’s their first Games and to just enjoy it. It shows the talent with them that it’s their first Olympiad and they can get a gold medal. Turning it around from Tokyo, this is a really great surprise as well. But Princess Anne just said to enjoy it.”

Georgie said: “I just had belief in what they were telling me behind me. They had belief and I just trust them so much. It’s just incredible. I have no words. It means so much but I didn’t think too much about that and I just got on with it and ended up here, it’s amazing!”

Lola concluded: “Winning the first GB Olympic gold medal in the quad is amazing. There have been so many women who have come before us and so many women who have fed into this and gave us the belief. Fran Houghton has been a big part of our process, there have been so many people who have gone into this, Andrew Randell our coach, all the coaches, support staff and our families. The four of us got the medal but there’s so many more that have got it too and we are so grateful to them!”

It wasn’t to be for the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Tom Barras, Callum Dixon, Matt Haywood and Graeme Thomas, who missed the podium in a close, fourth place finish. Tom said: “We went out and gave it what we had. Fair play to the other crews, they were better than us today. However much the heartbreak is now as we sit here, we want to say thank you to all the people who helped us get this far to the biggest competition on earth. It means so much.”

Graeme said: “Obviously I’m absolutely gutted, but we gave it everything we had today. The last stroke counts and the Women’s quad went out and proved that. It’s amazing for British sculling and for the GB Rowing Team as a whole – we need those medals to come in and support our programme so a big congratulations to them.”

Emily Craig and Imogen Grant were once again convincing in the Lightweight Women’s double sculls (LW2x), winning their semi-final to progress to the A final. Watching the Women’s quad win, Emily said: “I had faith in them. We watched them do it last year at the World Championships. We train with those girls, I know they’re hard as nails and I’m glad they proved me right. From a personal point of view, I didn’t know how far I could push my body until Andrew (Randell, Head Coach) came along and wrote a programme and I sat there and said, “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” and then we did. And it turns out the limit is further than I ever thought. I’m incredibly grateful to both him and Louise (Kingsley, Performance Director) for coming in and really changing things, and making things worthwhile to come back for this Olympiad because it’s been really special so far.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George were second in the Men’s pair (M2-) semi final and are also through to the A final. In the Women’s pair (W2-), Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards will race in the B final after finishing the semi final in fifth place.

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It was another dominant row for the Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw. They led throughout and won their heat, finishing 4 seconds faster than the Dutch, who won the first heat. They are now through to the final on Wednesday.

Georgie said: “The first race I always feel is the most nerve wracking – figuring out how the field has moved on. Now it’s just building on that for the final. It’s about remembering that this is the same 2km lake as everywhere else I’ve ever rowed – just trying to block out everything else that’s happening. It’s the Olympics and it’s so special but that doesn’t matter when we’re racing, we’ll think about that later.”

Lauren said: “It’s very exciting to get the first race down and take the win from the heat. I think now we focus, keep very internal and focus our intention of preparing ourselves as best as we can for Wednesday’s final. That’s where the big dance is, the race we’ve been preparing for all this time. Really pleased but excited to see what we can do on Wednesday. “

On being favourites, Lola added: “We try to block out all the noise of coming in as favourites. We have had seasons before where we’ve come in as underdogs and had great results, then come in as favourites and havent come on top. It doesn’t make any difference to us, we just try to respond to whatever the crews are doing on the day and move with them.”

Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360

The Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Tom Barras, Callum Dixon, Matt Haywood and Graeme Thomas are also through to Wednesday’s final, with a second place finish in their heat.

Callum said: “What gives us confidence is this saying we’ve always had – the water, the wind and the waves don’t know it’s the Olympic Games. So it’s different because you’ve got five other boats side by side but internally we’re running the same processes, rowing the same patterns. There’s a lot of confidence to be taken from that.”

On making his Olympic debut, Matt said: “It was really good to get my first race in at my first Olympics. We’ve definitely got a lot of stuff to work on, but it was a good first round to get done. All eyes on the final next week. I think you’ve got to think of this as another race – as soon as you start to think about it as an Olympics, nerves will build and panic starts to set in. It’s just another race – there are less crews and we’ve faced them all before. It’s the same people, we have to focus on that.

“The thing that’s so different is the crowd – there are so many people. This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. From the 1000m mark you have people screaming and shouting the whole way, and to know my family and friends are there and supporting from home, it really adds to it.”

Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360

The first race of the day saw Becky Wilde and Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne finish second in the Women’s double sculls (W2x), booking their place in the semi final.

Becky said: “I think that was a really solid start, we’ve all had really great training camps so I’m glad we could go out and show that in our race today. It’s a relief that we got to the start line in one piece, it’s a dream come true. I’m really glad we have had a good start to the regatta.”

Mathilda added: “This Olympics is so different to the last one now that I’m a mum. I’m grateful that I have friends and family out here – we have a big support network and that really helps. We’re learning every time, this is the first time we’ve avoided the repechage. We’ve had some solid training blocks so I’m excited to see what we can do each time we race. From all three heats the results are all over the place so I can’t predict who will be in the final, but it’s a very exciting event to be a part of.”

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Medals were won across the men’s, women’s and para rowing squads with the Women’s four, Women’s quad, Men’s eight and PR3 Mixed double all winning gold.

It was a win for the Women’s four (W4-) of Helen Glover, Esme Booth, Sam Redgrave and Rebecca Shorten after a tussle with the Romanians saw the GB crew take and keep the lead from the halfway mark. A buoyant Esme said: “It’s great to be a European Champion. I was just saying I don’t have any sort of championship title yet and now I do! I’m so happy!”

Double Olympic Champion, Helen Glover, winning her first championship title since 2021 added: “It’s what we were after and it’s probably the most composed I’ve felt in any race and that’s saying something. I’ve got a lot of confidence in our crew, I have a sense that we’re still in a learning process. Even mid-race I’m thinking – this is good, we’re learning! With such a new crew, all the races we do this season are significant moments… Varese was important in putting a line in the sand, today’s been a significant moment referencing last year’s Europeans, when Romania went through us in the last 500m, moving onto the next race will be a big learning moment of more nations coming in and people stepping on into the competition. I’m excited we are so new, with so much still to learn.”

Registering their first win as a crew were newly crowned European Champions, Sam Murray and Annie Caddick in the PR3 Mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x). Annie said: “It’s very exciting. There were bits that caught us off guard but we dealt with them well. We thought we’d be in the medals, we didn’t know what colour it would be so it’s an exciting day for us. It’s our first ever win as a crew. To be a European Champion is mad, it hasn’t sunk in yet.” Sam said: “We weren’t sure how we would do but we just trusted our training through the winter and full credit to Annie for putting down a really strong rhythm for us. We’re happy with how we executed it. We know we need to keep improving as we move through the summer but it’s good to start with a win here. We know there’s more there and it’s how we can keep locking it together.”

The Men’s eight (M8+) was a thrilling, high tempo race with the GB crew of Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox Harry Brightmore holding off pressure from the German boat to take the gold. Jacob said: “We knew it was going to be a tough race. The Germans are hungry to right their wrongs from the last few years and it was very clear Romania wanted to make a big push for this Championships, so for us it was all about keeping to our plan and not getting flustered by what anyone else threw at us. It’s never going to be enough until we take the last stroke of the most important race this summer and we are always striving for more… to go quicker.”

James Rudkin added: “We know that people are going to try to challenge us and put on some pressure, which the Germans tried to do. I think we rose to that pressure well and I was happy with how we held them off and pushed on towards the end – so it was a good race. We’re prepared that crews are going to come out for us this season, and we’re ready for that fight and want to take it on and push ourselves to be the best version that we can be. We’re in it to win. We’ve got Harry (cox) there talking us through the race and you feel like you’re one engine, one machine, driving it along. Everyone is doing their own bit to make the boat go as fast as possible and you could really feel that when he called us to push on. It wasn’t one person trying to smack at it more, it was all nine of us giving it everything we’ve got, so we’re happy with that and that’s the strength we’ll need to race fast crews across the season.”

Back to winning ways were Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw in the Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x), who topped the podium after a tight race ahead of Ukraine. Hannah said: “We had some teething problems at the start of the season, but we were learning from that and today was a display of the work we’ve put in for the last week and a half since missing out in Varese. I think we’ve always been on this track but that showed the work we put in through the winter and we are almost happier to see that than to see the result. Today was a row we can be familiar and happy with and I’m proud that we delivered under that pressure. It’s another learning for us.” Lauren added: “It makes me really pleased that we’ve taken the disappointment of Varese and turned it around here. It’s nice to be back on top again, on a podium with a gold.”

Benjamin Pritchard won another European bronze medal in the PR1 Men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x), he said: “It’s another bronze medal but I’m working in the right direction in terms of profile, race technique and race craft – learning how to build through a weekend. It’s taken me since 2019 but we’re getting there slowly. I posted a PB in the heats, that shows all the hard work is paying off. It’s good to start faster than I finished last season.”

Narrowly missing out on the podium with fourth place finishes were Olivia Bates and Imogen Grant in Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x) and the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Callum Dixon, Tom Barras, Matt Haywood and Graeme Thomas.

George Bourne is into the Men’s single sculls (M1x) final after a thrilling finish in the semi final saw him cross the line in third place. “My finish is something I’ve worked on since World Cup I, it’s not something you always want to test in a race, but it’s a big learning block.” He said, adding, “These opportunities are coming in thick and fast and I’m learning a lot of things. It wasn’t ideally how you’d want to pace a race, but these other guys did a good job in those conditions and I’ll try to learn from them going forward. I knew I had to give everything I had going into the line or I was going to fall short of the A Final. I’m proud to be in it. It’s another step on the way to try and qualify at the final qualification regatta but I’ve got a lot of things to work on. I’ll see what I can bring out of the hat tomorrow.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George won their Men’s pair (M2-) semi-final, rowing through Romania at the halfway point and maintaining their lead to finish almost three seconds ahead.

Seb Devereux and John Collins were fifth in the Men’s double sculls (M2x) semi-final and will race again in the B final.

Tomorrow will see seven more crews bid to make the podium here in Hungary. You can follow the action across British Rowing social media channels and the World Rowing website. Racing will also be shown on BBC iPlayer and the BBC website.

Full results and crew lists

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Director of Performance for the GB Rowing Team, Louise Kingsley, collected the overall World Rowing Cup Trophy in front of athletes, friends and families after racing and said: “The athletes have given us some excellent races – with some that I can only describe as edge-of-your seat stuff but all showing class and great technique to deliver these medal winning performances. Full credit and thanks to the coaches and support team too. We will now be focusing on our preparations for the World Championships and qualifying boats for the Paris 2024 games.”

The Women’s Eight (W8+) was one of the ‘races of the day’, with Natasha Morrice, Rebecca Edwards, Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Esme Booth, Emily Ford, Hattie Taylor, Annie Campbell-Orde and cox, Henry Fieldman taking the gold medal thanks to a sprint finish in the final seconds. Becca said: “This means so much, I can’t even really believe it’s happened. I think a lot of us have had plenty of races and put in so much work. This has been a big turnaround in the team and means so much to every single one of us.”

Lauren added: “Henry was just calling ‘Go now, go now!’ and we trusted every word that he said. Inching back, inching back, trusting in the process that we would come through in the end. It’s a great feeling.” And Karen said: “It feels really good to be World Cup Winners, that was a surprise! We are just stoked that we came out and put that performance together!”

The Men’s four (M4-) final was a thrilling race with GBR2 Dan Graham, James Robson, Sam Bannister and Sam Nunn just missing out on a podium spot in the final strokes. The GBR1 crew of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson however, continued their winning streak with another commanding victory.

David said: “It was quite a tough race, the competition is very fierce in this event and it’s also pretty hot. We always find the heat challenging. Being out there was quite energy-sapping, but we enjoyed the challenge.” Matt added: “I think we just trusted our rhythm. We know we have a very strong base speed, and the kiwis and Australians do as well. We hold consistently through the middle, trust the legs, trust that it carries us across the line and hope what happens in the last 500m takes care of itself. We don’t really think about that, we just step on and hope for the best.”

Photo: Benedict Tufnell

“We’re all looking forward to the Worlds,” said Freddie, adding, “ We have a lot of training to do before then, training camps and hard work, so it goes back to square one for us. It’s the end of the World Cup season, we’re happy with the results and now it’s back to square one to find out if we can get some more speed before Worlds.”

A dominant row and clear water win gave Emily Craig and Imogen Grant their second 2023 World Rowing Cup gold in the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x).  Imogen said: “It’s amazing. It’s the first time we’ve had the opportunity to wear the yellow as World Cup leaders and it felt pretty good to cross that line first. Over the world cup season we’ve raced most of the combinations, and it’s been good to see crews from Romania and New Zealand come back in. We had a great race with the US double too in the Varese World Cup so we feel like we’ve got a good sense of the field. But, no one ever sits on their laurels when they’re trying to win races so we’ll go back to 2 months of hard training and see if we can get every single thing that we can out of this double.”

It was a second 2023 World Cup gold for Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George in the Men’s pair (M2-) after a thrilling tussle with the Romanians which saw the GB pair cross the line 0.34 ahead. Ollie said: “I think we’ve been learning a lot throughout the week, certainly yesterday we raced very differently from how we did today. We were trying things out, so it’s nice to see them pay off. Romania are a top quality crew, we’re under no illusions and they’re doing about 85 races this weekend doubling up those two lads and they do strange things, crazy things at the line, so we didn’t immediately know we had won it when we crossed the line.”

Tom added: “It’s one of those weird races where now I’m thinking it’s one of the hardest ones I’ve done. At the time it was very internal, we had our race plan – Ollie was really calm, I was probably less calm but he kept me honest and focused which was great. I’m happy with it. It’s nice to win today but we’ll go back to the drawing board next week and see if we can get a couple more seconds because the field is very tight. Everyone is going to go away and get faster, so we’ll have to go away and get faster.”

It was another World Cup silver for Georgie Brayshaw, Lucy Glover, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry in the Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x). The race saw China lose its unbeaten run to finish fourth. “China were unbeaten and three crews got ahead of them today so this leaves this event wide open for the worlds,“ said Lauren. Hannah added: “I’m really proud of the GB women’s sculling squad. We’ve had Lucy jump in this week and hats off to her and everyone, because we’re able to adapt and hold our position on the world cup series, I couldn’t be prouder. We haven’t slipped at all, we’ve been challenged but it’s great to see.”

Varese World Cup II bronze medallists, Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras improved with a silver medal in the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) to win the overall world cup. “It’s another step on our treadmill which keeps on rolling,” said Tom, adding, “Hopefully we are going to crank up the speed as we head to the world champs, so two training camps to come and hopefully then we’ll be fresh and qualify the boat for Paris 2024, which is the main aim of the year.”

Photo: Benedict Tufnell

The men’s eight (M8+) race was neck and neck throughout with Australia just getting the edge on the GB crew of Will Stewart, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox, Harry Brightmore. Picking up silver medals, James Rudkin said: “We wanted to get the win but fair play to the Aussies for putting together a really good race. They’re a very fast crew so no shame in getting beaten by them. They’re very strong. It’s a chance for us to learn from it and try to come back stronger.”

The Women’s four (W4-) of Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Helen Glover and Rebecca Shorten won bronze behind Romania and Australia. Heidi said: “It’s always good to get on the podium, but it’s not quite the race or result we would’ve liked. We’ve stuck to our processes and I think we have stepped on through this regatta. We’re ready for a big block of training and to see what’s to come in September.”

In the B finals, the Women’s pair (W2-) of Chloe Brew and Juliette Perry racing for just the fourth time as a combination finished in fifth place (11th overall) and Aidan Thompson and John Collins, racing at their second event, were sixth (12 overall) in the Men’s Double sculls (M2x).

Final Day (Day 3) Results from World Rowing Cup III 2023

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GB Rowing Team has added six gold medals, three silver and a bronze to the bronze won yesterday by Olivia Bates (LW1x) placing top of the medal table at World Rowing Cup II. Highlights from an entertaining day of racing include a ‘clean sweep’ of golds for the men’s sweep squad and two World Best times for the Paralympic squad.

Summarising the weekend, Louise Kingsley, GB Rowing Director of Performance said: “Off the back of a solid European Championships we’ve been away, done more work, refined the crews, and I’m really pleased with how the team has come out and performed at this World Cup. Judging on the quality of racing here, there’s going to be stiff competition across the boat classes as we progress through the season.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George took gold in the Men’s pair (M2-), three seconds ahead of Switzerland. Tom said: “We’re thrilled with the win. We’ve set our sights on qualifying for the Olympics and having a good World Championships at the end of the year, and this is a stepping stone to that, so we’re happy. But also we know we’re going back to the training centre on Tuesday and it’s going to be ‘right, onto the next one’, and that’s important too.

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / British Rowing

Overall, we were comfortable with what we were doing and we were happy with our race plan and we executed it well.”

The Men’s four (M4-) of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson maintained their winning streak despite pressure from Australia and USA. David said: “All the competition is tough from semis to final, so you’re always working harder. Regardless of competition, you have to step on to come away with a win.” Freddie added: “When it’s close in the race, we’re always looking to row well technically and keep pushing on and keep putting other crews under pressure. I think we did a solid job today, but we’re always looking to get better. I’m grateful we came away with a win.”

After being unable to race at the European Championships  due to illness, Harry Brightmore returned to cox the European Champions men’s eight (M8+) of Will Stewart, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and Tom Ford to victory ahead of Australia and Germany. Jacob said: “Every race is both a challenge and an opportunity so it’s really good to be out here. We’re hungry and know that a result is only a result on the day and you have to prove it every time on the start line. There’s always pressure, but that’s why we do it.”

Sholto said: “The theme of this crew is to execute a clinical plan, we felt like we could improve after the preliminary race, and so today was just about staying in the moment one stroke at a time.

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / British Rowing

Lauren Rowles and Gregg Stevenson won their PR2 mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix 2x) race, finishing way ahead of the field, to record their second world best time at consecutive events (8.01.59). Lauren said: “We came out here wanting to go faster than we did in Bled and we did that so we’re happy. A win is what we train for, we want to be bold and take risks, doing things that haven’t been done before and putting down times that haven’t been done before.” Gregg added “Today was such a positive experience, really rewarding.”

Also continuing their unbeaten run with a World Best Time of 6:47.29 were the PR3 Mix4+ of Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller, Morgan Fice-Noyes and cox, Erin Kennedy. “At the end of the day we go out to get a gold medal, and we’re going to race hard for that medal. We knew with the conditions that the World record was a possibility, and I feel like we raced as hard as we could and it was an amazing achievement to have.” said Ed. Erin added: “This is huge. We started the season with a lot of momentum and it’s only building. It’s really exciting. We have more races to come this season, so hopefully when we get to qualification the unit will be rock solid. And who knows, if the weather gods are on our side, maybe we can achieve another world best time.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / British Rowing

Emily Craig and Imogen Grant rowed through the USA in the final strokes of the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x) to add another World Cup gold to their World Best Time, European and World titles. Imogen described it as “quite a sprint finish!” with Emily saying: “We felt a bit of pressure having done what we did yesterday with the World Best Time. We came away from Euros chatting about how we had another gear, and we worked on that pretty hard. We knew we would be racing the USA and French here and you can’t underestimate the calibre of these crews and what they’ve spent the winter doing. We knew we’d have to take it to the line today and thank god we did.”

The Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Lola Anderson, Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry finished second behind China to take a hard earned silver medal. Lauren said: “we’re really happy with that race. It’s our first race in this new combination, so to push China so hard, we’re really chuffed with that.” Lola added: “We want more speed, to work together more as a crew, and win more medals. Hopefully we’ll take the step up to gold, so watch this space.”

The Women’s four (W4-). GBR1 of Heidi Long, Helen Glover, Rebecca Shorten and Sam Redgrave also won silver ahead of the USA. Rebecca said: “I think we could’ve done a bit better – we can still step on, we’re still learning with this combination.” Sam added: “We’ve definitely stepped on since Bled, but everyone has stepped on so we’ll keep building for the next race.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / British Rowing

With three crews racing in the women’s eight (W8+) , no one wanted to miss out on the two podium spots. The GB crew of Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Hattie Taylor, Emily Ford, Rowan McKellar, Esme Booth, Natasha Morrice, Annie Campbell-Orde and cox Henry Fieldman kept calm and held off Canada to grab the silver medal. Karen said: “At the start we knew what was out in front of us so we just did our best to build throughout the weekend. It was great to finish it off with a silver. We’d obviously like it to be gold but we’re still building so it’s a good step in the right direction.”

The Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras hung on in a tight race to win a bronze medal. “We’re in the building phase right now” said Matt, adding, “we’re still quite a new crew with the addition of Callum and we’ve been working hard from Bled to here. We weren’t happy coming off the back of Europeans where we didn’t quite get our final right so we’ve had to work hard with a good mindset and a hunger for more.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / British Rowing

Annie Caddick and Sam Murray had a solid race in the PR3 mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x) but couldn’t hang on to a podium spot in the final stages and finished in 4th place. Before racing in the Women’s Eight, Rowan McKellar & Esme Booth also raced in the Women’s pair (W2-) final (GBR1), finishing in 5th place.

Earlier in the day, the Women’s pair (W2-) of Natasha Morrice and Annie Campbell-Orde (GBR2), the Men’s Double sculls (M2x) of John Collins and Aidan Thompson and Kyra Edwards in the women’s single sculls (W1x) all won their B finals, placing 7th overall.

In the other B finals, the Women’s four (W4-) GBR2 of Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Hattie Taylor and Emily Ford, and the Women’s double sculls (W2x) of Lucy Glover and Saskia Budgett finished 9th and 10th overall respectively.

GB Rowing Team Final Results at World Rowing Cup II 2023

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The Men’s eight (M8+) of Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Tom Digby, Charlie Elwes, Sholto Carnegie, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox, Henry Fieldman led a thrilling race and edged out the Romanian boat in the final seconds to retain their European title.

Returning to the boat for his first race since winning bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was an emotional Jacob Dawson. Jacob has been away from the team recovering from a pulmonary embolism and blood clot caused by Covid complications last season. He said: “There were definitely a few tears at the end there, certainly not out of sadness. With everything that happened last year – the blood clot, pulmonary embolism and the uncertainty on whether I was going to be able to return to racing at all, let alone racing on the world stage, there is such elation. I’m feeling a whole range of emotions and right now I hope I can be forgiven for just enjoying this moment for what it is. I can’t really put it into words.”

“Obviously, everybody on this team is very special to me – they become your closest friends – but having shared an Olympic final with James (Rudkin), Tom (Ford), Henry (Fieldman) and Charlie (Elwes), it was the cherry on top to be able to get the win with them, despite it being a lot closer than we wanted it to be! I think it goes to show that all the training we’re doing is paying off. We will come away from this, get back to it straight away, work on what we need to work on, and hopefully bring even more speed to the next races to come.”

Cox Henry Fieldman who stepped in as a substitute for Harry Brightmore added: “We’re very relieved. It was a nail-biting finish and perhaps that makes it all the sweeter and will serve as a motivator for this crew moving forward.”

In contrast, Emily Craig and Imogen Grant continued to dominate in the Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls (LW2x) and retained their European title in tough conditions. Imogen said: “Oh my goodness, double European Champions! It was quite bouncy out there on the lake and we knew that was going to be a factor coming in. We talked a lot about staying loose, staying together, making the most of the good bits and making sure we didn’t lose stuff on the bad bits. I think we really did that today. It felt a bit like the Tideway, which we’re both really familiar with!“

Emily added: “Coming into this regatta unbeaten is a place we haven’t been before, so it’s been a learning curve and we’ve had open and honest conversations with each other and ourselves, and I think it really paid off today.”

Picking up a silver medal in their first race in a new combination were the Women’s Four (W4-) of Rebecca Shorten, Helen Glover, Rowan McKellar and Heidi Long.

Double Olympic Champion Helen Glover was cheered on and joined on the podium by her three young children. She said: “This is our first race in the four. It’s a quick learning curve as it’s a faster race and the thinking time you have in the pair is just gone in the four, which I kind of love. There’s definitely more to come. For me it’s another silver in Bled – but every time I get silver in Bled I come back with a gold, so let’s hope that happens again. It’s the first time my family have watched me row (flat water) so it’s exciting for them too. I’m glad that they have come out to support me, it means so much!”

Heidi added: “What a race! We tried to just trust our process the whole way and then that was a real fight for the line. It’s gutting to come out the other side of it, but it was a fantastic race from Romania and we gave it our all. We’re going to keep building throughout the year… There’s a lot more to come from this point onwards.”

Annie Caddick and Sam Murray were thrilled to win a bronze medal in the PR3 mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x), as they made their competitive debut as a double. “we didn’t really know how it was going to go,” said Annie, adding: We’re quite a new double so to come away with a medal was good. Now we know what to do to crack on and get a little faster.”

Sam said: “We’ve been training hard. We’re only six months in the making and we had a close heat yesterday, so our target was to push hard in the last 500. We knew we wanted to maximise this opportunity and not leave anything in the tank today. So we’re proud of our performance. Our main goal is the World Championships, this is a stepping stone and we’re heading in the right direction.”

The Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Lucy Glover, Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry made the podium, taking away a bronze. Lauren Henry said: “It was my first senior international race so obviously it was nice to get a medal even if it’s not the colour medal we wanted. I haven’t really got a medal at U23s before so that was nice, but there are lots of things we can improve on. It was washy for us, but fair enough it was washy for everyone. We didn’t deal with it as well as some of the other crews, but there are positives to take in the project moving forward. The hope is to step up the podium.”

Other results saw a fourth place finish for the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras and a fifth place finish for Callum Russell in the PR1 men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x)

Earlier in the day Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George won their Men’s pair (M2-) semi final and will race the final on Sunday.

You can follow the action live across British Rowing social media channels and on BBC iPlayer and website.

Finals / Semi Finals results (Day Three) at the 2023 European Rowing Championships

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